PUWER Risk Assessments In Cheshire
Work Equipment Risk Assessments
Most Cheshire businesses come to us after something has happened. An inspector asked to see the assessment and nobody could find one. A machine arrived second-hand with no manual. Someone welded a frame onto a machine to make a job easier and it never got documented.
A PUWER risk assessment checks your work equipment against the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998, machine by machine, and tells you exactly where it falls short and what has to change.
We sell inspections and assessments only. No guarding, no interlocks, no parts, no maintenance contracts. Nothing we find on your site turns into a quote for us, which is the entire point of asking someone independent to look.
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Tell us what equipment you have and where the site is. We aim to come back with a quote within 48 hours.
PUWER Risk Assessments In Cheshire
Work Equipment Risk Assessments
Most Cheshire businesses come to us after something has happened. An inspector asked to see the assessment and nobody could find one. A machine arrived second-hand with no manual. Someone welded a frame onto a machine to make a job easier and it never got documented.
A PUWER risk assessment checks your work equipment against the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998, machine by machine, and tells you exactly where it falls short and what has to change.
We sell inspections and assessments only. No guarding, no interlocks, no parts, no maintenance contracts. Nothing we find on your site turns into a quote for us, which is the entire point of asking someone independent to look.
Assessment, Inspection Or Thorough Examination: Which Do You Need?
Three different things get called by each other’s names, and briefing the wrong one wastes a site visit.
A PUWER risk assessment is a conformity assessment. An assessor works each machine against the regulations and records every point where it does not meet them, with a written verdict against each criterion and the control measures needed to close it. It is triggered by an event rather than a date.
A PUWER inspection is the periodic in-service check under Regulation 6, looking for deterioration on equipment already established as suitable. The result is a record, not a certificate. That is covered on our periodic PUWER inspections page.
A thorough examination has a specific legal meaning. Under LOLER it applies to lifting equipment; within PUWER it applies to power presses working cold metal and nothing else, under Regulations 32 to 35.
And a CE or UKCA plate does not settle it. Modify a machine substantially and the original Declaration of Conformity can no longer be relied on. At that point the machine has to be treated as new or re-manufactured, assessed against the Essential Health and Safety Requirements and re-marked. That single finding is the most common high-risk item we record, and it usually sits on a machine everyone assumed was fine because it came marked.
What Puts An Assessment On The Agenda
PUWER sets no calendar for assessments. Regulation 6 ties periodic inspection to risk rather than a fixed interval, and the only hard statutory cycle in the whole of PUWER belongs to power presses. That does not mean there is no interval. It means a competent person has to derive one from the actual risk, and that derivation is part of what the assessment gives you.
These are the situations that put an assessment on the agenda:
- Modified equipment. A guard taken off for a changeover and never refitted, a welded frame or track added, two machines integrated into a line, a control retrofitted locally. The most common trigger and the biggest source of high-risk findings.
- Second-hand or auction machinery. No manual, no Declaration of Conformity, no history, and a data plate that no longer describes the machine in front of you.
- An enforcement visit. The HSE or your unitary council has asked to see the assessment, or an improvement notice has landed with a date on it.
- Relocation. Equipment moved between sites or repositioned, changing access, isolation and stability.
- An insurer or customer audit. Common across the automotive and chemical supply chains in the county, where tier-one customers audit hard.
- A near miss or an injury. Something went wrong and the immediate question is whether the machine was compliant.
- Acquisition or a new tenancy. You have inherited a plant list you did not specify and cannot vouch for.
- New equipment before first use. Regulation 6 requires inspection after installation where safety depends on installation conditions.
If none of these apply and the equipment has been assessed before, what you probably need is periodic inspection rather than a fresh assessment. We will tell you that rather than sell you the bigger job.
Work Equipment We Assess Across Cheshire
Cheshire has an unusually heavy industrial base for a county most people picture as farmland, and the equipment list changes completely depending on which part of it you are in.
Chemicals and process plant. The salt deposits under Winsford, Middlewich and Northwich built a chemical industry that is still here: soda ash and sodium bicarbonate production at Northwich, the chlorine and polymer plants around Runcorn, and the refinery complex at Ellesmere Port. Process sites bring conveyors, packing and bagging lines, agitators, centrifuges, materials handling and a great deal of pipework and pressure plant sitting alongside the machinery.
Automotive. Volume and luxury vehicle manufacturing at Crewe and Ellesmere Port, with a deep tier-one and tier-two supply chain around them. Press shops, guillotines, folders, CNC machining centres, robot cells, welding equipment and paint plant.
Rail engineering. Crewe has been a railway engineering town since 1840 and remains a major junction, with maintenance depots, lifting jacks, wheel lathes and heavy workshop plant.
Food and drink. Dairy is a serious part of the Cheshire economy, and food manufacturing across the county brings filling and packaging lines, palletisers, wrappers, CIP systems and cold-store handling equipment.
Logistics and distribution. The M6, M56 and M53 have made the county a distribution corridor, and Ellesmere Port in particular has taken the bulk of recent industrial floorspace. Dock levellers, balers, conveyors, racking and lift trucks.
Life sciences and laboratories. The science corridor running west across the county, and the research campuses in the east, bring fume cupboards, autoclaves, centrifuges and small-scale process equipment that is work equipment like any other.
If your equipment is not on that list, it does not mean it falls outside PUWER. The definition is deliberately wide: any machinery, appliance, apparatus, tool or installation used at work, including equipment you hire rather than own.
GSB Inspection Services
Covering All Four Cheshire Authorities, And Who Enforces Where
Cheshire has no county council. It has not had one since 2009, when Cheshire County Council and its districts were abolished. The ceremonial county is now administered entirely by four unitary authorities, each doing everything within its own boundary: Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester, Warrington and Halton. Halton also sits within the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, which is why it sometimes gets grouped with Merseyside rather than Cheshire.
In practice, Cheshire East runs Crewe, Macclesfield, Congleton, Nantwich, Sandbach, Middlewich and Wilmslow. Cheshire West and Chester runs Chester, Ellesmere Port, Northwich, Winsford and Neston. Halton is Runcorn and Widnes, and Warrington is an authority in its own right.
That matters when people say Cheshire and mean different things. A supplier list, an insurance schedule and a council website can each be using the word to describe a different area. If you have several sites, it is worth knowing which authority each one actually sits in before you need to.
Because which body enforces PUWER depends on your main activity, not your postcode. Under the Health and Safety (Enforcing Authority) Regulations 1998, the HSE is generally the enforcing authority for factories and manufacturing, while the local authority takes warehousing and wholesale distribution, retail, offices, hotels and catering, and leisure.
In Cheshire that split runs down the middle of the county’s economy. The chemical and process sites, the vehicle plants and the rail engineering are HSE territory, and the larger process sites carry a much heavier regulatory load on top, where PUWER sits alongside major-hazard duties rather than standing alone. Meanwhile the distribution sheds that have taken most of the county’s recent industrial floorspace are enforced by the unitary council, whose environmental health team holds exactly the same powers to serve improvement and prohibition notices as an HSE inspector.
Two units on the same estate can therefore answer to different authorities. Plenty of businesses find out which one they have only when an inspector arrives.
We cover all four authorities and we are not a national call centre routing you to whoever happens to be nearest.
What Happens When Our Assessor Is On Site
Most of the work is on the machines, but the visit starts before that and the paperwork side matters as much as the hardware.
1
Pre-assessment with your duty holder.
Done jointly with whoever holds health and safety responsibility, before anything is surveyed. We agree the scope and confirm exactly which items are in it, then review the systems around them: your policy and responsibilities, operational procedures and equipment manuals, training records, accident history relevant to the equipment, previous examination and inspection reports, and maintenance logs. Having those ready makes the day considerably shorter.
2
The physical survey.
Each machine is worked through against the criteria that apply to it, with the operator wherever possible, because how a machine is actually used is rarely how the manual says it is used. Expect questions about changeovers, cleaning and clearing blockages, since that is where most real risk lives. Machines need to be stopped and safely isolated for the guarding, interlock and isolation checks.
3
If the assessor finds something that means a machine should come out of use immediately, you hear it on the day, in person, not when the report lands. Findings are photographed as they are recorded so the person who has to fix it can see exactly what the assessor saw.
4
The report per machine.
One report for each item, so each can be actioned, filed and revisited on its own. Equipment details, the assessment matrix with a verdict against every criterion, a scored risk assessment, the control measures needed, the residual risk once they are in, a recommended inspection periodicity and the photographic annex.
Why Cheshire Businesses Choose GSB
A PUWER assessment produces a list of things that are wrong with your machinery. It is worth thinking about who is holding the pen.
We have nothing to sell you off the back of it. Most firms offering assessments also sell guarding, interlocks, safety relays, light curtains, retrofits, training or maintenance contracts. Their assessment is the survey that precedes their quote. Not necessarily dishonest, but not independent either, and an inspector reading the report knows it. GSB sells inspections and assessments. That is the whole product.
Competence you can point to. We are an associate member of the Safety Assessment Federation and work to the competency standards and code of practice it sets. Our engineers are professionally registered with the Engineering Council or working towards registration. For a service whose entire value rests on the competence and independence of the assessor, external verification of both is worth having.
We know where PUWER stops. On Cheshire process sites in particular, machinery questions run straight into other regimes: pressure systems, extraction, lifting equipment, access at height. We tell you which regime owns what rather than stretching a PUWER assessment to cover ground it does not reach, and we take items off the quote where an examination you already hold covers the risk.
You speak to senior people. No brokers, no call centre, no being passed between departments. The business is run by its two directors, both senior engineers, and enquiries reach them. A technical question about whether something falls under PUWER, LOLER or PSSR gets answered on the call rather than in a follow-up.
PUWER Risk Assessments In Cheshire
An assessment is not a walk round with a clipboard. Every machine is worked through against a fixed set of criteria, each tied to the regulation it comes from, and each gets a written verdict rather than a tick. The regulations divide into three groups for assessment purposes:
- Regulations 4 to 10, management issues – suitability, maintenance, inspection, specific risks, information and instructions, training, and conformity with product legislation.
- Regulations 11 to 24, physical aspects – dangerous parts and guarding, specified hazards, temperature, controls and control systems, stop and emergency stop, isolation of energy, stability, lighting, maintenance operations, markings and warnings.
- Regulations 25 to 30, mobile plant – applied where equipment is mobile, and recorded as not applicable where it is not, so the report shows the question was asked.
Each criterion comes back as Satisfactory, Conditionally Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory, with a separate yes or no on whether action is required. Items that pass are recorded as passing, because an assessment that only lists problems is not evidence of anything.
Alongside that sits a scored risk assessment: likelihood against severity on a three by three matrix, with severity anchored to major injury as defined in RIDDOR. Scores of 7 to 9 are High and need urgent action, 4 to 6 Medium, 1 to 3 Low. Persons at risk are recorded separately for employees, visitors, contractors and the public, because the answer often differs between them.
Critically, every hazard also carries a residual risk rating showing where it lands once the recommended controls are in place. That is the column that turns a list of problems into a plan, and it is the one most reports in this market leave out.
Where equipment falls under another regime we say so rather than quietly duplicating it. Lifting parts attract a LOLER thorough examination, pressure systems need a written scheme of examination under PSSR, extraction needs LEV testing under COSHH, and access at height brings in the Work at Height Regulations. On Cheshire process sites that overlap is the rule rather than the exception. Where those examinations already cover the significant risks they can satisfy the Regulation 6 duty for that item, so there is no sense paying twice.
Our Commitment To Your Safety
We Are A Proud Associate Member Of The Safety Assessment Federation (SAFed)
As an associate member of the Safety Assessment Federation (SAFed), GSB Inspections works to the competency standards and code of practice SAFed sets for inspection bodies. For a PUWER assessment that matters in a particular way: the value of the report rests entirely on the competence and independence of the person who wrote it, and SAFed membership is one of the few external checks on both.
How To Book A PUWER Assessment In Cheshire
Six steps. Only one of them needs your production to pause, briefly, and only for the machines being assessed.
1
Send an equipment list
Email info@gsbinspections.co.uk or use the enquiry form on this page. A plant list or asset register is ideal; a spreadsheet of machine names and locations is enough to start. Photographs of anything home-built, heavily modified or bought second-hand help more than a description does. Tell us if an inspector or auditor has already set a date.
2
Receive a quote
We come back with a price, usually within 48 hours, based on the equipment and the site rather than on what we expect to find. If your list includes items already covered by another statutory examination you hold, we will say so and take them out rather than charge you to duplicate it.
3
Confirm a date
Machines have to be stopped and safely isolated for parts of the assessment, so we work around shutdowns, planned maintenance windows, out of hours and weekends. On process sites with permit systems, tell us early and we will build the permit time into the plan rather than losing half a day to it.
4
Before the visit we work through the legislation, standards and industry guidance that apply to your process and equipment, and identify what good looks like for each item. Any risk assessments you have had done before are taken into account, including whether the recommendations from them were ever acted on.
5
The assessment and the report
The pre-assessment and physical survey happen on site, then you receive one report per machine: equipment details, the criteria matrix, the scored risk assessment, control measures, residual risk, recommended inspection periodicity and photographs of the findings.
6
What happens after
The report is a preliminary risk assessment for identifying the measures needed to comply. It is for you to consider internally and build your own final risk assessments from, which is how the duty sits under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. Once the action plan is closed out we can reassess the remediated items so the record shows the loop was closed, and most sites then move onto periodic Regulation 6 inspections at the interval the report recommends.
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Client Satisfaction
Gary has been doing MPi ltd's lifting certifications, air compressor tank and roller shutter door inspections for a number of years now. I have always found him a pleasure to... read more
matt page
Been using GSB for a year, great service keeping all our plant and machinery in certification
James Plant
Excellent service very competent knowledgeable and professional staff Would highly recommend
Carl Eades
Well what a great service Gary provides, always does a very thorough job, can't recommend enough, we always Gary really great guy.
Daz Griffiths
Excellent service & communications
Gary Jackson
Prompt and professional friendly service.
Apples & Pears Nursery
Great service. Would highly recommend and will use again.
Jade Furey
My first contact was with Gary and he dealt with my query and questions brilliantly. He explained the process, it was easy to sort and it went smoothly. Expected contact... read more
Mrs B
Great bloke, reliable, informative, pleasure to deal with.
Gary Jackson
Service, communication, support and advice has been excellent, Garry has gone out of his way to support our school with issues arisen from council maintenance, he has gone out of... read more
Miss H Morrey
Inspected transferable winch units with, greatly appreciated, additional guidance covering separate requirements for accompanying D shackles and inspection schedule. Very diligent service and great value.
Andrew Piekarczyk
Excellent service, very thorough and practical
Kerry Callear
Gary has been doing our certifications for the last few years. Very professional and very reliable. A**
Rob Scanlan
Useful Cheshire Resources
Cheshire's four unitary authorities
Cheshire East — Crewe, Macclesfield, Congleton, Nantwich, Sandbach, Middlewich, Wilmslow, Knutsford and Alsager: cheshireeast.gov.uk
Cheshire West and Chester — Chester, Ellesmere Port, Northwich, Winsford, Neston, Frodsham and Tarporley: cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk
Warrington: warrington.gov.uk
Halton — Runcorn and Widnes: halton.gov.uk
Cheshire has had no county council since 2009. Each authority delivers every local service within its own boundary, and each environmental health team enforces health and safety in council-enforced premises. Middlewich is the one that catches people out: it is Cheshire East, despite being bordered on three sides by Cheshire West and Chester.
Website: hse.gov.uk/work-equipment-machinery/puwer.htm
The HSE hub for PUWER, covering the overview, inspection and maintenance of work equipment, training and competence, and mobile work equipment. The HSE is the enforcing authority for factories, manufacturing, construction, agriculture and hospitals, which covers most of the county’s chemical, automotive and rail engineering base.
PUWER 1998: legislation.gov.uk
ACOP L22: hse.gov.uk/pubns/books/l22.htm
The regulations themselves, and the Approved Code of Practice assessments are carried out against. L22 carries special legal status: follow it and you are taken to have complied, or you must show your alternative is at least as good.
Safety Assessment Federation (SAFed)
Website: safed.co.uk
The trade association for the engineering inspection industry, setting competency standards and a code of practice for its members. GSB Inspections is an associate member. If you are comparing providers, SAFed membership is one of the few external checks on competence available to you, and worth asking about.
Frequently asked questions
A conformity assessment of your work equipment against the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998. An assessor works through each machine, records every point where it does not meet the requirements, references the finding to the regulation it breaches, and grades it. The output is a report and an action plan, not a pass or a fail.
No, and it is the most common mix-up in this market. An assessment establishes whether a machine complies in the first place and is triggered by an event: a purchase, a modification, a relocation, an enforcement visit. An inspection is the periodic in-service check required by Regulation 6, looking for deterioration on equipment already established as suitable. Most sites need both, at different points.
PUWER sets no frequency for assessments. Regulation 6 ties periodic inspection to risk rather than a fixed interval, justified by the equipment, its use and its environment. In practice an assessment is repeated when something changes: the machine is modified, moved, used for a different job, or the existing assessment no longer reflects what is on the floor. Each report we issue recommends inspection periodicities for the items it covers.
A competent person. The Approved Code of Practice defines that as someone with sufficient knowledge and experience to know what to look at, what to look for, and what to do about what they find. There is no single mandatory qualification, which is a genuine source of confusion. What matters is demonstrable knowledge of the equipment, the hazards, the regulations and current safeguarding standards. The employer can delegate the work but never the accountability.
No. PUWER creates no certificate, no expiry date and no document to display. Anyone offering to issue you a PUWER certificate is selling something the regulations do not contain. What the regulations require is that inspection results are recorded and kept available, so the evidence takes the form of reports and records rather than a certificate.
No. A mark records that the manufacturer declared conformity with supply law for the use they intended. PUWER asks whether the machine is safe for the task you are actually doing, in your environment, with your people. New marked machinery fails assessments regularly, usually because it was installed differently to the manual, guarded for a different feed method, or integrated into a line the manufacturer never saw. Substantial modification can invalidate the original Declaration of Conformity entirely.
It depends on the main activity at the site, not the postcode. The HSE is generally the enforcing authority for factories, manufacturing, construction, agriculture and hospitals, which covers most of the county’s chemical, automotive and rail engineering base. Your unitary council takes warehousing and wholesale distribution, retail, offices, hotels and catering, and leisure. In Cheshire that means Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester, Warrington or Halton. Two units on the same estate can have different enforcing authorities, and both hold the same powers to serve improvement and prohibition notices.
Four, and no county council above them. Cheshire County Council and its districts were abolished in 2009, and the ceremonial county is now administered entirely by four unitary authorities, each delivering every local service within its own boundary.
Cheshire East covers Crewe, Macclesfield, Congleton, Nantwich, Sandbach, Middlewich, Wilmslow, Knutsford and Alsager. Cheshire West and Chester covers Chester, Ellesmere Port, Northwich, Winsford, Neston and Frodsham, and was formed in 2009 from the former Chester, Ellesmere Port and Neston, and Vale Royal districts. Warrington is separate again, and Halton covers Runcorn and Widnes while also sitting within the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, which is why it is sometimes grouped with Merseyside.
The central Cheshire towns are the ones that get confused. Northwich and Winsford are Cheshire West and Chester. Middlewich, three miles from Winsford and bordered on three sides by Cheshire West and Chester, is Cheshire East. If you run several sites it is worth confirming which authority each falls under before an inspector asks.
Almost anything used at work. The definition covers any machinery, appliance, apparatus, tool or installation for use at work, from a hand drill to a production line, including equipment hired rather than owned and equipment an employee brings from home. Use is defined just as widely, taking in starting, stopping, programming, setting, transporting, repairing, modifying, maintaining, servicing and cleaning.
Tell us when you enquire, including the date you have been given. It changes how we sequence the visit and what the report needs to demonstrate. Not having an assessment is a gap you can close; what makes it worse is closing it with a document that will not stand up when read. Send the equipment list to info@gsbinspections.co.uk and mention the notice.
No, and any provider telling you otherwise is overreaching. PUWER covers the work equipment. Pressure systems need a written scheme of examination under PSSR, extraction needs thorough examination and test under COSHH, lifting equipment attracts LOLER, and access at height brings in the Work at Height Regulations. On Cheshire process sites that overlap is normal. We assess against PUWER, tell you plainly which items sit under another regime, and take off the quote anything an examination you already hold covers.
Usually yes, but not for the same parts of the machine. LOLER covers the lifting parts; PUWER covers everything else about that equipment, plus everything that does no lifting at all. A vehicle lift is the classic case: the lifting mechanism under LOLER, the controls, guarding, isolation and stability under PUWER. Where an examination under LOLER, PSSR or another regime already covers the significant risks for an item, it can satisfy the Regulation 6 duty for that item.
Yes, for the parts involving guarding, isolation, controls and interlock function, and for anything needing safe access. It is usually a short period per machine rather than a day, and it can be spread across a shutdown, a maintenance window or out of hours. Tell us your constraints at quote stage and we will build the visit around them, including permit-to-work time on sites that need it.
Yes, and it is one of the most common reasons for an assessment. The absence of a manual and a Declaration of Conformity is itself a finding, and it changes how the assessor has to approach the machine because intended use cannot be assumed. Photographs sent in advance help, particularly of guarding, controls and any modifications.
Regulation 5 is maintenance: keeping equipment in efficient working order and good repair. Regulation 6 is inspection: a planned, safety-critical check by a competent person, recorded separately. They are distinct duties and this is a recurring enforcement finding. A combined service log recording lubrication, oil changes and reactive repairs does not evidence Regulation 6, however well the machine is actually maintained.
Likelihood against severity on a three by three matrix. Severity runs from minor injuries through injuries causing time off work to major injury or death as defined in RIDDOR. That produces a score: 7 to 9 High and needing urgent action, 4 to 6 Medium, 1 to 3 Low. Persons at risk are recorded separately for employees, visitors, contractors and the public. Every hazard also carries a residual rating showing where it lands once the recommended controls are in.
No, and it is worth being straight about that. What we carry out is a preliminary risk assessment for the purpose of identifying the measures needed to comply with PUWER. The content is for you to consider internally and use to form your own final risk assessments, which is how the duty sits under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. It gives you the technical evidence base and the action plan; the risk assessment itself remains the employer’s.
GSB Inspection Services
PUWER Assessment Service Areas In Cheshire
This is not an exhaustive list. We carry out PUWER risk assessments across the whole of Cheshire, and we are constantly expanding our reach. If your site sits outside these areas, send us your equipment list and we will tell you plainly whether we can cover it.
- Chester
- Warrington
- Crewe
- Macclesfield
- Ellesmere Port
- Northwich
- Winsford
- Runcorn
- Widnes
- Congleton
- Nantwich
- Middlewich
- Sandbach
- Wilmslow
Require A PUWER Risk Assessment In Cheshire?
No brokers, no call centre, and nothing to sell you off the back of what we find.
Send your equipment list and site location using the form below, or email info@gsbinspections.co.uk. We aim to come back with a quote within 48 hours. If an inspector or auditor has already set you a date, say so in the message.
info@gsbinspections.co.uk
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